Chapter 1 - The Legend of the Twenty Million Platinum man.

In a world where Fate takes the form of a massive of weave of threads connecting everyone and everything, Noal Kai races to find an answer to why his mere existence throws all of destiny into chaos.

Threads of Fate

Chapter 1

The Legend of the Twenty Million Platinum man.

Ella Gant turned the busted tail pipe over her mouth and a solitary water droplet slid down and teased her from the rim.  She shook it free but it all but evaporated by the time it reached her tongue. 

“WATER” she cried, as she dragged her body across the sand like a dried-out slug.  “I can feel it!  We’re done for!  No miracle rescue for us this time!”

 

She tossed the twisted hunk of metal away and then fell to the ground in a plume of dust.  A few feet behind her, twenty-one-year-old Noal Kai was still scratching his head and looking back at the smoldering wreckage of what was once their ride.

                “I just don’t understand it.  It was a steamobile.  It runs on water!  How could it have caught fire?” he asked aloud.

                “Really?  Out of everything that’s happened in the last two weeks, that’s the part you don’t understand!?”

Ella buried her head in the desert sand, reducing the rest of her complaints to inaudible muffles.  Just how long had they been out here anyway?  Even with the car, Noal had figured they’d be goners by day two, but here they were on what must’ve been day four; or was it five?  Maybe Fate really was helping them out.  He took pause at that thought and squinted over the horizon, but the golden thread continued to stretch onward into infinity.

Fate, help him?  It was official; the heat was making him delusional. 

                “Hey, come on.  We gotta keep moving,” he urged to Ella, who was now slumped over a rock several feet away.  “Hey, didn’t you hear me?  I said we have to go!  No?  Fine, I guess I’m just going on without you.  You hear me Ella?  This is me walking away now…  You hear that Ella?  Ella?” 

The only response he got was her short emerald hair whisking in the desert breeze.  This was a trick; it had to be.  If she expected him to-.  No, absolutely not.  There was absolutely, positively NO way that he was going to…

 

Noal’s feet sunk deeper into the sand with each step.  He shifted his body to compensate but was only rewarded with Ella drooling all over his shoulder.  She was about a foot taller than Noal, skewing far closer to athletic than dainty, which made her awkward to carry.  At least the fifty pound supply bag on his chest evened his center of gravity out.

“Geez, how can a woman who hasn’t eaten in almost five days still be so heavy?” Noal mumbled.  He could’ve sworn he felt her knee him in the rib.

Noal wandered onward, putting his faith in the seemingly endless line of the golden thread, just as he always had before.  Once or twice, a small town or oasis crept up over the dunes, but then vanished just as quickly - mere mirages.  By the time the dancing elephants and bikini-clad women appeared, he had all but given up on finding any real salvation.  So his skepticism was perfectly warranted when, a half-day later, a massive city conveniently appeared in the distance.  Noal kept expecting it to vanish as he got closer, but this mirage was particularly stubborn, growing larger and larger until he found himself in the monolithic shadow of its outer wall. 

                “I don’t care… if you’re real this time or not.  I can’t take another step,” he confessed to no one in particular, collapsing to the ground.

He lay there for a good, almost relaxing few seconds, before piercing excitement erupted above him.

                “We’re finally here!” she shouted.  Noal lifted his thousand pound head just enough to see the silhouette of Ella, stretching out as though waking up from a nap.  “Isn’t it wonderful Noal!?” 

                Noal seethed.  “Well, don’t you seem suddenly energetic?”

                “Oh… right… Hmm, well I guess I must’ve suffered a bit of sun stroke, didn’t I?” she said, turning to him with a pitiful false cough.

                “Liar!”

                Her feigned weakness morphed into an indifferent shrug.  “Well either way, we’re here now; no sense in getting angry.”

                “And where is here exactly?”

Ella pointed to a hanging sign high above them.

‘Welc_me to Fortun_ T_wn’ 

Noal glowered but Ella was impervious to it.

                “Come on, get up!  I can’t wait to have a look around!”

 

Noal pulled his head out of the water trough after nearly drowning himself and let loose an exhillerated sigh.  Beside him, a black horse stared in bemusement. 

                “Come on Ferdinand.  Leave that one alone,” said its straw hatted owner, pulling the animal away.  He muttered “weirdo” under his breath as they walked off.

                “Satisfied?” asked Ella.

                “Not even in the slightest.”

They’d wandered through that scorching hot desert for this?  The place was a dump!  She’d promised him class and culture; a city with some history to it.  In reality, Fortune Town was nothing more than a crumbling mosaic of poorly constructed buildings, rusty roofs, and decaying streets.  The only history here was the unwanted bits that travelers ditched before heading somewhere else! 

As they navigated the dense morning crowd together, Noal couldn’t be more annoyed by the huge smile on his partner’s face.  Was it possible this was actually what she was expecting? 

                “I can’t believe I let you drag me all the way out here for this.”

                “Me?  Wasn’t it your golden thread that led us here?  Or are you trying to tell me that you just happened to stumble across this place in the middle of the desert with no map and your horrid sense of direction?”

                Noal mumbled, “well… yeah, I suppose...”

                “Then what are we arguing about!?  Honestly, you’d enjoy life a lot more if you’d just lighten up a bit.  Maybe even show a little bit of, oh I don’t know, enthusiasm from time to time.” 

                “Enthusiasm!?” Noal blurted.  “Please tell me exactly why I should be ‘enthusiastic’ that we just spent the last five days on the verge of death just to reach this dirty, run-down gambling city!?”

                “Run-down?  Look around you!  Look at this architecture!  There must’ve been over half-a-dozen generations that put this place together!”

                “Yeah, half-a-dozen generations of drunks, hippies, and gamblers.  Ella, it’s like they just took the slums of every other city, squashed them together, and then dropped them in the middle of nowhere!” 

Noal pointed to a precarious looking building with a sheet metal roof, perched atop another equally precarious looking building.  The entire structure swayed with even the slightest breeze. 

                “Hey, I like it,” she said with a shrug.  “Maybe they don’t have the best engineers, but at least it shows that normal people have potential too.”

                “The potential for what?  Building a death trap?  It’s a wonder that this place has survived as long as it has!  Who in their right mind would live here!?”

                “Noal!”

The ball landed high above them, catching a guard rail on a rooftop.  It wasn’t long after that Noal felt a small tug at his cloak. 

                “Mister, what’d you go and that for!?”

It was a small child, probably no older than five or six years, his eyes welled with tears.  Behind him, a small army of onlookers stared in disapproval.

                “I… uh… sorry I didn’t mean.”

                “Honestly,” Ella said, rolling her eyes.  She knelt down on one knee and put a hand on the child’s shoulder.  “Ignore the mean old man.”

                “Hey!”

Ella motioned for Noal to zip-it and then gestured for the other kids to come closer.

                “Here, want to see something cool?” she asked.  The sniffling kid wiped the tears from his eyes and nodded.  Ella picked up a small pebble from the street and quickly surveyed the area.  After licking her finger, she drew some invisible calculations in the air.  “Watch this.”

Ella pulled back and tossed the small pebble up against the side of a wall.  The pebble ricocheted to the opposite side, disturbing a crow.  The crow took off, shaking the metal trough it was sitting on and dislodging the small pebble once again so it rolled across before falling off and striking a hanging chime outside a balcony door.  A few seconds later, the door opened and a woman had a quizzical look around.  Not finding anyone, she shrugged and shut the door with a bang.  The entire structure shook, dislodging the ball and sending it rolling down the rooftop.  It launched itself off the edge, fell two stories, and landed right into Ella’s outstretched palm.

                “Here you go kid.”

The crowd gasped with a chorus of oohs and ahs before breaking into full applause.  Ella patted the kid on the head while simultaneously beaming to Noal with unmistakable self-satisfaction.

                “Show off,” he muttered.

Another tug caught Noal’s attention.  He looked down to find a second child underneath his cloak, pulling at the brace on his left arm.

                “Hey mister, what’s wrong with your arm?”

                “Don’t touch that!  Go, shoo!”

Noal yanked the kid out and instinctively turned away.  The kid scrunched his face and stuck out his tongue before him and his friends ran off.  Noal pulled his cloak back down to hide the brace underneath.

                Ella snickered.  “You know, if you really wanted to show off, you could’ve just shown him your arm.”

                Noal wasn’t laughing.  “I think we both know that would be a very bad idea.”

They ducked into the nearest bar, a modest place with a sign reading Gracey’s.  The inside was larger than it looked from the outside and heavily populated with some less than upstanding clientele.  A line of men sat at the bar, staring at them as they entered.  They ranged from skinny and sickly to grossly overweight.  The bartender wasn’t winning any prizes either; Noal could’ve sworn she saw something move from within his beard.  It was hardly what one would call a five star establishment, but on the other hand they’d wandered The Fringe for so long that he hardly remembered what a five star establishment even looked like.

                “So, what do you think?” Ella asked.

Noal’s distrustful eyes darted around the room like a fly caught in a glass jar.  “I think we should just find out why the golden thread led us here and get out, before anything else bad happens.”

“I meant, what do you think about the menu.”  Noal just shot her a bemused look.  “Oh lighten up.  You worry too much for a guy with the nickname of the Hu…”

Noal reached over the table and put his hand over her mouth.  “Are you crazy!?  Don’t’ say it!  Unless you want even more trouble, that is,” he hissed, reactively pulling this cloak a little tighter.

                Ella pulled his hand off.  “All I’m saying is relax!  You have the greatest fortune teller in the western hemisphere backing you up, remember?  Before we go rushing back into the desert again, what say we at least get some food in us first?”

For once Noal had no retort; he was awfully hungry.  They both sat for a precious few quiet moments, perusing the specials: minced sand kiwi - twenty-four platinum pieces, fried griffon-bird egg " thirty platinum pieces, armored lizard stew with desert radishes " forty-five platinum pieces.  Yet even as they sat there, Noal was already acutely aware of another problem brewing. 

At first he thought he was just hearing things: a choir of cheers and laughter quickly silenced, then ringing bells and shuffling cards again silenced.  He soon realized the sounds were very real.  The grin on Ella’s face widened in perfect synchronization with Noal’s own frown.  He turned around in his seat to find a waiter moving back and forth through an alcove leading to a casino on the other side!  Slot machines, game tables, high rollers, and big spenders, she caught all of it in the blink of an eye.  Ella was already salivating, and Noal knew it wasn’t from the food.

“So, this is the reason you dragged me here,” Noal grumbled.  Ella’s wide, uncontrollable smile was her only response.  “Ella, tell me, do you even HAVE any money left to gamble away?”

Realization hit her like an arrow to the chest.  She frantically fingered through her pockets and pouches, predictably coming up with only two copper pieces. 

“Just a few plats!  A couple of notes!  Copper pieces even!” she pleaded, going into full begging mode.  “I’ll double it in fifteen minutes!”

“Oh really?  You’ll double it will you?  And I suppose that’s what happened when you bet on that horse race in Gram City?”

“I was getting forty-to-one odds!”

“Ella, your horse DIED before reaching the finish line!”

She opened her mouth to rebuttal, but then just shrugged.  “Okay, I may have slightly misread Fate on that one.  How was I supposed to know horses only live to be twenty-five?”

“Then there was that little card game with the Sundance Society.  How much did you lose there again?”

“Hey, that wasn’t my fault.  They were cheating!”

“YOU were cheating!”

Ella recalled.  “Oh yeah,” she said, with a crooked grin.  “Almost got away with that one.”

Noal just put his head in his hands.  “Look, don’t go getting your threads in a knot just because I can control my spending.  For once can we please just sit here and have a nice quiet meal.  I’ll even buy you a nice lentil salad, how’s that?”

Ella looked at the two measly copper pieces in front of her and deadpanned.  “My, you’re so generous.”

Noal rolled his eyes.  “Look, let’s not forget the real reason we’re here.”

Ella’s eyes instinctually darted to Noal’s left arm.  “Ah yes, the cure.”  Now she was the one rolling her eyes. 

                “Hey!  Don’t give me that look.  We can’t all use our abilities to wow street crowds and retrieve lost little balls for kids.  Some of us have bigger problems.”

                “Of course, of course,” she pandered, brushing him off with her hand as she snatched up her two copper coins and stood up from the booth.

                “Hey, where are you going?”

                “Go on, go find your cure.  You have your business to sort out, and so I have mine.”

 

She was impossible, he thought as he watched her walk off, although at least she saved him buying that extra salad.  How could it be, even after all this time, she still wasn’t convinced he needed a cure?  It boggled his mind.  What did she know anyway?  Maybe if she ended up on a few newspaper covers for the kinds of things he did...  No, that would almost surely encourage her. 

“Got your eye on that one, eh?  She’s got a lot of spunk, that’s for sure.”

A voice from the bar interrupted his train of thought.  Noal looked over and found the bartender leaning across it, staring intently at him, the last of his patrons putting down some loose change and stumbling off to the doors.

“My eye" on her?  Ha.  She’s more trouble that she’s worth.”

“Trouble’s what makes-em worth it,” the bartender responded with a sly grin and a lick of his lips.

Noal shuddered involuntarily.  He could smell the man’s breathe all the way from the booth " a rotten combination of bad olives and whisky.  He wore a pressed black vest and bowtie, yet somehow was still absolutely filthy.  His thick black beard looked as if it were painted onto his face, which itself was a cracked wasteland of wrinkle valleys and oily lakes with one mountainous black wart anchoring it all on his left cheek.  He must have been at least fifty years old, but that didn’t stop him from ogling Ella and licking his lips. 

“Trust me,” Noal said.  “We’re travelling together and I’m telling you now, whatever you’re thinking, she’s not worth it.” 

 “Heh, a travel companion like that, eh?  What she cost you?”

“Oh I got a real bargain.  All she cost me was my dignity.”

Noal returned his attention to the menu, hoping the bartender would get bored and go away.  His choking musk was overpowering even the smell of food the next booth over.   

“So what’s yer story kid?” he asked, still looking at Ella.  “Runaway?  Con artist?  Refugee?”  He leaned in and leered.  “Convict?”

“W-What makes you say that?” Noal squeaked.

“Dunno kid, you look tense.  Only two kinds of people come to Fortune Town.  Those lookin’ to get rich, and those lookin’ to get away.  And, well, if you’d made it rich, you wouldn’t be sittin’ in a dump like this, would’ya?”

Noal had dealt with enough bounty hunters in his time to know that grin.  Discreetly, he grabbed the butter knife from the table.  The bartender bellowed a deep laugh that shook him.

“Haha, don’t worry kid.  Whatever you’re worth, it can’t even be close to what I’m worth!” he laughed, spitting into a glass and giving it a shine with his washcloth.  “I’ll let you in on a little secret.  I’m wanted in every nation on this planet.  I’m a horrible man who done horrible things.  I caused so much chaos they got a real special name for me.  The Human Hurricane.”

Noal lowered the menu and gave the bartender a sideways glance.  “The Human Hurricane?  Right.”  He rolled his eyes, dipped the knife in a package of butter, and started spreading it over a piece of bread.

                “What?  Ain’t you ever heard of the Human Hurricane?  I’m the scourge of the seven nations!  The Great Destroyer himself!  I’m the most wanted man in the world!”

                “The Human Hurricane is just a myth,” Noal said, not even looking up.  “You aren’t him.”

                The bartender grunted.  “A myth!?  Would the nations be offerin’ a joint twenty-million platinum reward for a myth!?  They want me ‘cause of all the stuff I done: bustin’ up whole cities, puttin’ whole droves of their people in the hospital!”

“Right, and I’m sure that was all you.”

“You better believe it was!  You really ought t’be afraid o’me.  I even wiped out my entire home town!”

Noal suddenly stopped dead, his mocking expression turning gravely serious.

             “I remember it like it was yesterday… sittin’ around in that boring fart of a town.  How can I start my legacy, I thought to myself one day.”  

 

Like a wild animal, Noal suddenly leapt the distance between the booth and the bar, grabbing the bartender’s collar and pulling him face-to-face.

                “That’s not how it happened!”

The bartender, stunned by the sudden outburst, stammered stupidly for a few seconds before finally comporting himself with a raised eyebrow.

                “Really?  What would you know o’that?”

Oh how he’d like to show him, Noal thought, but infuriating as this man was, even he didn’t deserve that.  At least, this was what Noal thought until his eyes stumbled upon the black streaks on the bartender’s forearm.  Noal tilted his head and his whole body froze.

                “Where… where did you get that tattoo!?” Noal stammered.

                “My tattoo?  What’s it to you?”

The sight of those black marks made all Noal’s reservations forfeit.  For the first time in a long time, he purposely rolled up his cloak and held up his left arm, revealing a cage of belts and buckles encased around a jet-black tattoo of sinister tendrils.  The bartender’s eyes grew wide with fear.

                “Now, like I said before, where did you get your tattoo!?” Noal demanded.

“You little cheater!” an unfamiliar voice shouted from the casino floor.

Noal’s expression melted into utter horror.  The bearded bartender just smiled.

“Well would you listen to that?  Guess you were right.  Your friend really is more trouble than she’s worth.”

Threads of Fate

Author's Note

This revision represents a pretty substantial (and experimental) change from my first draft. I found that while I loved having an action scene as a hook, it just overlapped too much with the action scene in chapter 2.

This new version condenses chapter 1 and 2 from my old version, with an "intrigue" hook instead of "action." I'm still not sure I like it more than the old version yet. I would love for people who have read my previous version (or even those willing to read both) to chime in on this. For everyone else, I would greatly appreciate if you could tell me if this first chapter still has a good HOOK.

Reviews

[Waka Crusnik]

Wow... This is definitely a great chapter to open with. Everything from the character interactions to the near disaster that unraveled later on... I was hooked the moment I started reading. First off, I love the interactions between Ella and Noal, it's always entertaining to watch two opposing personalities interact, and the conversation was very well written... Second off I was really intrigued by the whole "threads of fate" concept you have going here. It's an awesome concept and yet I'm surprised no one thought of it before, you would think the "threads of fate" would be an obvious thing to pick up on but my God I'm glad you were the one to pick it up. Even though Ella can control fates, seeing that she could miscalculate with the thousands upon thousands of strings does not make her control any more assuring; hell it makes it more nerve wracking!

And the best part is that you answered a lot of questions while creating a crap ton more. Why are they in the desert? Why are those two, two completely opposite fate wise, traveling together? What are they in search for? But it's not something that leaves me mad, you didn't abruptly leave off or anything. I'm just hungry for more is all. You're looking into publishing right? If your book is anything like this one section, then hell you got yourself a fan right here.

Once again, awesome job.

[KaylaPotter1216]

I'm afraid that I don't have time to read this right now, however, I am going to send a friends request and i hope that you accept it because I would REALLY like to read all eight (really nine, that Chapter 2.5; that idea is really cool to me) chapters and any others you might add later on. :) I promise to write a more constructive review once I read them. >_

[selkietales]

“'WATER' she cried," needs an exclamation point after 'water'. Maybe don't use caps.
“'Hey, come on, we gotta keep moving,' he urged to Ella," doesn't need the word 'to.'
"Ella buried her head in the desert sand." Umm... this seems suicidal. You could say she pressed her face against the sand or something.
"If she expected him to-. No, absolutely not," would be better as, "If she expected him to- no, absolutely not."
There are some more minor grammatical errors like that throughout and the italics are mostly unnecessary, but otherwise this is pretty good and a great start :)

[Aarontastic]

I think this was an excellent beginning to your story! I was very impressed with the way that you write; it's very lively and professional: your characters were unique and interesting, the dialogue was engaging, and the narrative was paced perfectly. Your writing is full of humor too, and while I was reading through it, I sort of conceptualized it as an anime--so if that's what you were going for, it worked on me :)

I checked up on your website before reading this chapter here. It's obvious that you put a lot of effort into this whole project, and I made sure to read up on all the background info--it helped a lot with visualizing your characters and the world they are in. Most importantly of all, it got me prepared ahead of time for your 'fate' concept...

About that: it's pretty abstruse, so imo it's a good thing that you added in the 'short scene (which I'm assuming was the pebble trick for the little boy). I have to confess, I was rather skeptical about the chances of you pulling off the concept of 'the threads of fate', but you managed it pretty well and conveyed it in a way that made it intelligible and palpable to the reader.

I haven't got much more to add; this was a practically flawless chapter. The story thus far is very intriguing, so I will definitely read more. The story is very mainstream-friendly; it's something I could easily see becoming published if you maintain this quality throughout and continue promoting yourself assiduously :)

[Shep]

At last a great writer is born. My eyes could not leave the page. You ask is to much? Not where I am sitting, bring it on an let's ride. AWESOME work can' wait to read more.

[Adalia]

I adore this.
it really grabs my attention.
wonderful job. love it.

[Black]

i would love to read chapter two
did you make those drawings yourself/ ?

[Aaron M. Anderson]

Awesome beginning! I like the way you describe Ella and her threads. Even without the handy cartoon you provide, it's a solid introduction to her and her powers. You also tease with Noal's mysterious tattoo.

My favorite part about this whole piece is the beginning, in which you explore your characters via dialog. Not only did they express themselves and their personalities through their dialog, you used vivid imagery (Ella trying to get every last drop from the drain pipe) to explore their characters.

The humor tended to be awkward sometimes, and it felt like I was reading an anime teleplay. Not a bad thing, if that's what you were going for, of course.

This chapter is enough to make readers want more, and you end the chapter with a harrowing twist of Fate... it was exciting.

Great work here so far!

[Mariko]

Great first chapter - I read the second as well - and think you really have the beginnings of an incredible story. I could easily see this turned into a manga/comic book sitting in the young adult section. I'm looking forward to reading more of the book!

Just a few notes upon second read:
1) Three days is an incredibly long time to go without water. I know that this is a fantasy book - but I still find it extremely hard to believe that he would be carrying her after three days of not drinking any water and that she would be perfectly fine.

2) Dialogue is always difficult - and comic books get away with a little bit of cheesiness (it's part of their charm) -- If this were a pure comic book I think you could leave it as is - but occasionally it gets a little cheesy. I wish there was a way to give you more detailed critique cuz it's really only once or twice here or there - but I would just say, if there's a way that through Google Docs or something I could pin point a few places and make one or two suggestions I'd be happy to - if that would be helpful for you.

All in all - I think this is well on its way to being a polished piece ready for publishing possibilities. It's just a matter of very nit-picky edits that would nip it into perfection.

[SamBug]

This was a really good story. I enjoyed reading it!